Cleaning Small Seeds

BZZT! BZZT!

I recently found, while cleaning some very dry Salvia clevelandii / Cleveland Blue Sage from Risingcreek, that dry powdered chaff will cling to a very dry plate. I was able to remove some of the finest chaff by repeatedly pouring seeds and big chaff off the plate, then wiping chaff powder away with a napkin.

It was probably "static cling".

But there was so much mid-size chaff that I finally got seeds by using tweezers, one at a time.

Hi! I used the tea strainer for my pansy seed and it worked great!
Got some planted and on the fridge, hope they germinate!

I realize this is something of a zombie thread, but I'm reviving it because I found it when searching for help in cleaning tiny seeds, and, while there is the mention of chaff clinging to balloons and plates because of static electricity, I didn't see anything quite as systematic as I've been doing for years. This is for very tiny seeds. Seeds that make coleus seeds and amaranth seeds look giant. I've used it for torenia seeds and artillery plant seeds.
Often I have to collect the seeds by crumbling the pod or, with artillery plant, by letting the whole plant dry and crumbling it. That leaves a lot of non-seed matter. After plucking out the larger stems, I use successively finer strainers, from colander to wire strainer to smaller, finer wire strainer (tea strainers, I guess) to a nylon tea strainer. That leaves mainly seeds, dust and very small chaff or crushed pod and leaves.
I've tried rolling them down finer surfaces, from finer and finer cloth (way too small for any kind of cloth) to paper to cardboard, but, anything that will grip the chaff will also grip these seeds. In the case of the artillery plant seeds, under a loupe, I can see they are not completely clean, as they would be if they were shot from the ripe pods, but they have tiny detritus clinging to the seeds. They are not clean and smooth, which complicates things.
What is working is my ultimate solution for cleaning tiny seeds. I swirl them in large ceramic bowls. Then pour from one bowl to another. The dust and crushed leaves and pods cling to the bowl and the seeds don't. Of course, it can only leave a fine layer of powder, so it takes transferring them from bowl to bowl, wiping out the bowl each time. The static electricity seems to increase during the process.
Ultimately, I've gotten perfect golden powder of Torenia seeds, and I'm still working on the artillery plant seeds, but I can see the gold-beige seeds emerging from the green detritus now......

I hope this helps someone!

I forgot to explain why the seeds are not held by the static electricity along with the other stuff. It's because the powder and tiny flakes of leaves and pods are light and mostly flat. The seeds have the weight of a central mass that is only in contact with the surface of the bowl at one contact point. The very weak static charge of the bowl is enough to hold the tiny bits of dust and flakes of leaves, but the central weight of each seed will always pull it away from the single contact point that is touching the bowl.
I believe this would always work because, even flat seeds, like alyssum, is carrying cargo (the plant embryo) that the dust and crushed leaves are not.

neat ideas

Nice ideas. The only problem I would have with using the static cling methods is that is would release a lot of dust in the air and that always gets to me.

Loretta, winnowing or blowing the tiny bits of leaves, pods and dust from heavier seeds does produce a lot of airborne debris, but the methods using static electricity function by capturing the particles with an electric charge. Since cleaning extremely small seeds requires repetition, removing more debris each time, it might help you to use a slightly moist cloth or paper towel to trap the particles each time you wipe off the surface of the bowl, cup or balloon. You may want to wipe it again with a dry cloth or paper towel afterwards to be certain that the surface is not moist enough to cause the seeds, as well as the debris, to cling to it.
If you are very sensitive to dust in the air, you may want to wear a medical mask of some kind (I use "earloop" masks) whenever you handle non-commercial seeds.
But, among home-grown and hand cleaned seeds, those that were cleaned using static electricity will have less dust than seeds cleaned by any other method ... maybe with the exception of those that are fermented or floated.

Thanks, SilkKnoll. I probably should use a mask. Another issue I've had with static and that is because I use a large plastic platter that we got with a sushi order is the seeds are repelled by my hands and stuff flies to my sleeves. I can even trace my finger beneath the platter and everything moves away from that point. But I'll try the shoe box top. That may work better.